Tick Tock
2/9/22
The Great Fire of London
I went to explore around the part of London that burned down during the Great Fire of London. Obviously it looks very different now! For one all the buildings in Pudding Lane are made of concrete and glass! Why do you think that is?
Look at the map below. I walked from the Tower of London, to Pudding Lane and the Monument (which is just left of Pudding Lane on this map) and then to the current St Paul’s Cathedral (the original burnt down in the fire). The area in red shows the huge part of London that burnt down. I visited a couple of buildings that survived the fire and are still standing today.
But before I show you, how much do you know about the Great Fire of London?
Top 10 Great Fire of London Facts
1 The Great Fire of London happened over 350 years ago.
2. The fire started on the 2nd September in a bakers shop in Pudding Lane. It burned for 4 days.
3. The baker who was called Thomas Farriner said he’d put out the fire in his bread oven. But three hours later at 1am, his house was completely on fire.
4. People’s first response was not to put out the fires, but to grab their stuff and run. Lots of people ran towards the Thames.
5. The fire spread really quickly. There were many reasons for this. A lot of the buildings were made of wood and straw, the houses were built really close together and it was really windy at the time. Why would these things have helped the fire spread?
6. A huge part of London was destroyed but only 6 deaths were recorded. It is believed that many more people than this died.
7. In the end buildings were destroyed using gunpowder to create large firebreaks to finally stop the fire spreading any further.
8. At the time there was no fire brigade. It was created after this disaster. They did have fire engines though, but not like we have today! The fire engines were barrels of water on a wagon with a hand operated pump attached to squirt the water. People also tried to put out the flames with buckets of water filled from the River Thames.
9. There were no cameras or phones in those days so how do we know so much about the fire? Many sources of evidence have been used to learn about the fire, including Samuel Pepys diary, paintings and drawings created by those that were there and evidence dug up from the area in the years after the fire.
10 St Paul’s Cathedral burnt down in the fire. The version we see today was designed by Sir Christopher Wren. He also designed the Monument, a column style statue that was built to remember the fire. It took 50 years to rebuild London!
41 Cloth Fair and St Batholomew's Gatehouse
Very little survived the fire but a few buildings actually did. The first two buildings in the pictures below are examples of buildings that survived the fire. 41 Cloth Fair and St Batholomew’s Gatehouse didn’t burn down. Incredibly they are still standing today, although obviously some changed have been made in the 350 plus years since the fire.
When the fire was burning all around, these two buildings were protected by surrounding walls. While other very similar buildings near by didn’t survive these did.
All Hallows by the Tower
The church All Hallows by the Tower is the oldest church in London and is right next to the Tower of London. The original building was actually built around 300 years before the Tower of London! The church survived the Great Fire of London but has been partly rebuilt since it was badly damaged in the Second World War. During the Great Fire of London Samuel Pepys was said to have watched the fire from the tower in the church.
The Tower of London
The Tower of London was another place Samuel Pepys watched the fire from. The fire got really close to the Tower of London but the thick curtain walls made of stone protected it. Good job too, because at the time of the fire a lot of gunpowder was being stored there and if the fire had reached it there would have been a massive explosion.
The Monument
The Monument was built after the fire to remember the events of the fire and was designed by Sir Christopher Wren. It is 202 feet tall and said to be 202 feet from the bakery where the fire started in Pudding Lane. It has 311 steps leading up to the top, which you can still go up. When it was built, not only was it built to remember the fire but also as a telescope for scientific experiments. Unfortunately this never really worked.
St Paul's Cathedral
The original St Paul’s Cathedral was completely destroyed in the fire so had to be completely rebuilt. The new cathedral was designed by Sir Christopher Wren, like a lot of the buildings rebuilt after the fire.
Find out more about the Great Fire of London...
The Great Fire of London Topic Pages – Coming Soon!
Creative Commons Images used on this page, with thanks…
Great Fire of London Map by Bunchofgrapes – CC BY-SA 3.0
All other images on this page are Whizzbots, Public Domain and Shutterstock images.